“What you think and what you believe doesn’t much matter when the property is not yours to present,”

This museum enjoys the benefit of tax exempt status. I earn money and pay taxes and can buy property, and even if it is art, it is mine to keep and enjoy and restrict as I so choose.

They derive an economic benefit from their tax status and you might say that the taxes that I pay in fact go to subsidize them and every other tax exempt organization in the United States.

When a museum elects to organize as a tax-exempt organization I believe that everyone out there is entitled to voice their opinion with regards to how appropriately the tax exempt organization is pursuing their stated goals and mission statement.

My opinion may or may not matter but the right to voice it is mine and mine alone.

I think it is a stretch when you say that I seek to exploit the collection for personal gain. To date my photography has generated very little income whatsoever. When you strip out the few photos that I’ve sold (as I already agreed that my photography of the signs would fall under non commercial use) I’ve made exactly zero dollars with my photography.

In terms of indirect benefits that would amount to anything worth a hill of beans, at this point I think that this is a stretch. It is a jump to say that my primary purposes with regards to shooting their collection is to somehow personally profit economically. Whether or not their photos are on my blog or not and any subsequent PR type goodwill associated with this is non existent.

Thomas Hawk is not worth more as a brand if these photos are on my blog or not. Equally, Zooomr (where I don’t draw any salary by the way) is also worth no more or less depending on whether or not these photos exist on the site.

Of the 7,000 or so photos I’ve published online a handful of extra photos from their collection would have exactly zero material benefit to me.

Your arguments are merely meant to discredit me to somehow shine some positive light on the fact that this museum is not following their stated mission of educating and exhibiting their signs to an international community. Restricting photography and photo sharing (the best possible way to reach an international community) is wrong. If they were a private tax paying organization I might feel differently. But they are not.

“Sorry, it just doesn’t ring true and it’s entirely unethical to mount a campaign of public opinion”

It is certainly not unethical for me to express my opinion regarding this museum and their practices as I have done. I would hope that others would also take a greater interest in monitoring the non profits that exist in our society and pointing it out when their practices do more to hurt culture and art than to help it.

I would bet you that this museum makes far more money pimping out their signs to CSI and other TV shows than I make from my blog. Of course I pay income tax on what I make on my blog while they do not.

And you’ve reached the heart of the matter, that being your assertion that what you think and believe should be adopted by another party who maintains interests opposed to your viewpoint. You believe your photography would promote their efforts, and they aren’t interested. You think that you should be allowed to photograph and present their collection for your own purposes and they disagree.

What you think and what you believe doesn’t much matter when the property is not yours to present, so the whiny diatribe you’ve published on the internet in an obvious attempt to defame a party that has disagreed with you is immature, dishonest and self-indulgent.

It is obvious that you are seeking to exploit the objects owned by another party for personal gain, and the ostensible promotion for the museum is secondary to the benefit directly afforded to you as a photographer. The intrests you are certainly more selfish then charitable. If charity was your aim, you would have offered to photograph their collection and turn over all rights and copies to the museum to promote the items as they wish.

“To date this blog has been a money losing entity for me. When my hosting bill went up to $149 per month to pay for for a dedicated server, I decided accept ads to help pay for what was becoming a very expensive hobby.”

Regardless of how much money you lose running your blog, you’re still taking in revenue to offset costs while gaining whatever self-promotion this indulgent exercise affords you. On this very page, you have an advertisment drawing in money on while you criticize a non-profit organization’s decisions to protect their property. You state that any revenue gained from these advertisements goes to fund your blog and photography, but you neglect to acknowledge that both those endeavors offer direct financial and promotional benefit to your commercial personna. Furthermore, this entire blog seems to be an advertisement for your professional relationship with zooomr, so it doesn’t quite fit the notion of a non-commercial piece of free expression.

Sorry, it just doesn’t ring true and it’s entirely unethical to mount a campaign of public opinion against a party that is excercising their legal right to limit the commercialization of their property.

To date this blog has been a money losing entity for me. When my hosting bill went up to $149 per month to pay for for a dedicated server, I decided accept ads to help pay for what was becoming a very expensive hobby.

All of the money I make on this blog either goes back into it or into my photography hobby. It is certainly not my motivation for wanting to shoot the neon signs. I’ve been shooting neon signs for years and love the art.

I also have no problem with the neon art museum charging commercial users to make their money. I just think that this practice by them should go along with allowing the art to be seen by as many people as possible and don’t believe that opening photos of their work would in any way be detrimental to their revenue.

They need money to preserve and store the signs, who says they have to let you make money on your blog with pictures of their property. What right do you have to take pictures for free to post on your commercial website? You are not a non commercial entity, there is little art to see here, and a lot of lame pictures of plastic toys.

People need to wake up and understand that if they allow people to have at least some rights over content such that they can at least share it freely with one another then eventually you will benefit as well because you will be able to make use of and/or enjoy the works of others.

That is what an entire operating system (GNU/Linux) is based around not to mention the fundamental ideologies of the free culture movement.

I think it is sad to see something like this. Write them back a letter and explain it to them.

They don’t want you to own pictures of their property and give them away for free to other commercial ventures.

Seems reasonable.

You really cry wolf alot.